Syria: Two things about war: first, war is, essentially, young men dying badly (can’t find the source of that quote), and second, war always involves civilian death – women, children, the elderly – and complaints about collateral damage are rather naive since it’s unavoidable. (Anyone with neocon leanings needs to remember these things.) So, pictures first, which helps to set up the reasons for the problem described in the second article.

Keep these numbers in mind: In the early 1990s we did an immigration topic for CX, and at the time there were something like 25 million displaced people worldwide. About half were displaced internally (still in their original country), and the other half had managed to cross a border to another country.

The latest figure I’ve heard for displaced people currently is 60 million worldwide. The article above says 11 million are from Syria alone. Is there any hope of the situation, either in Syria or globally, improving?